RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Darren Till and Yoel Romero are taking over Manchester.
The two former UFC contenders are set to collide Sept. 26 for a 190-pound catchweight bare-knuckle boxing bout at the AO Arena in the main event of BKFC 94, BKFC founder David Feldman announced Monday on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” Feldman said he’s expecting to sell out the 23,000-seat arena in the heart of Manchester, England.
“Darren said ‘sure’ immediately, and Yoel, it was just a wait to make sure we got the weight done,” Feldman told Uncrowned. “But other than that, no, not at all [was it a hard fight to make]. These guys have been smack-talking back and forth for years, and they’re finally going to settle it September 26 at the AO Arena.”
“Two guys that can really punch and two guys that have hit the canvas before,” Feldman added, “so it’s going to be really great.”
Till (1-0 BKFC) made a big impression in his bare-knuckle debut this past May, surviving an early knockdown before flattening fellow MMA veteran Aaron Chalmers with a brutal second-round knockout at BKFC 90 in Birmingham, England.
A 33-year-old native of Liverpool, Till first rose to prominence with his run to a UFC welterweight title shot from 2015-18, before his exit from the promotion in 2023. Till then gave his career a second injection of life with a successful four-fight boxing run, which culminated in a massive knockout of former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold in August 2025 to capture the inaugural Misfits Boxing bridgerweight title.
Feldman said the Sept. 26 date against Till was originally offered to the Brit’s longtime frenemy, BKFC star Mike Perry, however Perry was unable to commit to the date. Perry is currently slated to meet Dillon Danis in an MMA fight on Aug. 29 promoted by online sportsbook DuelBet. Feldman said February 2027 is now the target date for Till vs. Perry.
“That’s what we would like to get done,” Feldman said. “Obviously you saw the news that Mike’s fighting Dillon Danis in Florida coming up pretty soon, so we’ll see what happens there, and there were rumors about Mike fighting Nate Diaz again, so I don’t know what’s going on there. But we are targeting a Mike Perry vs. Darren Till fight for early 2027.”
Romero (1-0 BKFC) made his own successful bare-knuckle boxing debut with BKFC this past September, knocking out Theo Doukaus in the second round at BKFC 80.
An ageless wonder, the 49-year-old Olympic silver medalist was a feared UFC middleweight contender for years, knocking out the likes of Rockhold, Chris Weidman, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Tim Kennedy. Like Till, Romero has competed in a variety of combat sports since his 2020 UFC exit, including a pair of knockout victories in Mike Perry’s Dirty Boxing promotion, two RAF wrestling matches, and most recently a bare-knuckle MMA victory over Alex Nicholson, which ended in a first-round TKO.
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